MI5 did not deliberately withhold files, review finds

There is no evidence the security service, MI5, intentionally withheld documents from a major investigation into the agent in the IRA known as Stakeknife, a review has concluded.

It was conducted after material was discovered in 2024..

Hundreds of documents were found by MI5 after Operation Kenova published its interim report into the activities of Stakeknife, who was west Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci.

He was linked to at least 14 murders while working as an Army agent within the IRA in the 1980s. He died in 2023.

The review was carried out at MI5’s request by a former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Helen Ball.

A summary has been published by Operation Kenova.

It states: “I (Helen Ball) have not seen evidence of a deliberate attempt to withhold the material identified in 2024.

“Therefore, I have concluded that none of the material was, deliberately withheld from Operation Kenova at either an individual or an organisational level.”

She adds the material had not been properly stored and indexed “when it should have been”.

Some of the documents might have been found earlier had MI5 “maintained stronger relationships” with Operation Kenova.

They were discovered when MI5 was digitising its Northern Ireland legacy archive.

The review makes six recommendations – including that MI5 creates “an accurate timeline” of knowledge of and engagement with those running Stakeknife.

Freddie Scappaticci joined the IRA in the 1970s and towards the end of that decade was recruited by the Army as an agent.

Throughout the 1980s he operated within the IRA’s so-called internal security unit – known as the “nutting squad”.

Its primary purpose was to identify informers, who were then kidnapped, tortured and shot dead.

Scappaticci himself was implicated in multiple killings while at the same time working as a spy, passing on intelligence about the IRA.

The IRA became suspicious of him in about 1990 and stood him and his unit down.

He was unmasked in the media in 2003 and although he denied the allegation, he moved into hiding in England where he died in 2023.